


Awake, O Sleeper

by bluebeholder



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet Ending, Implied Violence, Kandersgiving 2020, Life Partners, M/M, Mage Underground (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:27:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27761500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Instead of Anders killing Karl in the Chantry, Justice cured Karl of Tranquility. Free again, eyes opened to the worst that could happen to a mage, Karl took up the cause beside Anders.No Templars would be able to tear them apart.
Relationships: Anders/Karl Thekla
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Awake, O Sleeper

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Awake, O Sleeper" by the Brothers Bright. This isn't technically a sequel, but it adheres to the story in [the fighter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22429102), which is an exploration of Karl and his relationship to Anders.
> 
> This idea has been percolating for a while, but Kandersgiving gave me the excuse to dig it out and finish it. This was originally supposed to be a very, very long story, but it actually seems more suited for this. Enjoy. :)

Blue light flickered ahead in the narrow passage, the only light at all, casting bare, flickering shadows. Anders glanced over his shoulder, seeing nothing in the blackness, though he was alert to any possible sound. No one ahead of him dared make a noise, save for ragged breathing and the occasional muffled sound of pain as they tripped over a jag in the floor. Anders only didn’t trip because he was used to navigating these tunnels, had run them forward and back until he could do it blind.

A quiet order from up ahead: “Steps down, be careful.”

The five mages—three children between twelve and sixteen, one elderly, one Tranquil—slowed down, taking the narrow, buckling steps carefully. Anders stopped and turned back to face the darkness of the passage behind, just in case. The Mage Underground tried to keep these tunnels free of any nasty creatures, and they paid a damn high price to the Carta for protection of the entrances, but still. Nothing was ever guaranteed in Kirkwall.

This passage emerged from a cliff up the Wounded Coast. Rumor had it that it had been a slave tunnel, centuries before, cut by magic and by hand in desperation to move people fast out of Kirkwall’s underbelly back when it had been used for blood rites and cruel magic. More recently, it had been a smuggler’s tunnel, until the exit on the cliff collapsed in a storm.

Clearing the blockage, and the debris from the rest of the tunnel, had been a nasty job, but it was worth it. The tunnel ran from the deepest part of Darktown, winding through the very bedrock to reach safety. Mages taken from the Gallows could easily and quickly, without being spotted by anyone, get to the Wounded Coast and the ship waiting at the other end of the passage.

For all the usefulness of this tunnel, the Mage Underground used it rarely. It was hard to schedule the smugglers’ ship with the tides, and overusing the tunnel risked its existence being found out. Tonight they’d made the call because the people they transported were terribly vulnerable to discovery.

It was a good call.

They got their mages on the ship safely, handing them off quietly. Anders had no idea where the ship was going—that was need-to-know information, and other people needed to know it. He didn’t.

“That was good,” he said quietly, standing on the narrow, rocky shore.

Karl looked at him and smiled. “Very good,” he said.

Blue light flickered at the corners of Karl’s eyes and for a moment his voice changed: “But there is more work to do.”

“Shut up, Justice,” Anders said tolerantly. “Let’s revel in this. We don’t get just a win very often.”

“We’re just concerned. Five mages is a start, but there truly is more to do. We’ve yet to handle the Templar who made tonight necessary,” Karl said, in his usual voice again. In the moonlight, the faded brand on his forehead was almost invisible.

Anders shrugged, leaning on his staff. “You’ll do it,” he said, looking at Karl. Standing straight and tall, wearing a padded gambeson and sword at his hip, blue light flashing in his dark eyes. “Probably without telling me until you come limping into the clinic again.”

Karl laughed quietly. He took Anders’ hand and squeezed it. “You know me very well.”

“Yes, I do,” Anders said. He pulled Karl in and kissed him.

They walked back to Darktown in silence, with no light except when going up those ridiculous stairs. Anders never did trip, though his thoughts were a bit preoccupied. Karl would be going after that Templar, then. Probably do something incredibly stupid, like plant false rumors, lay an ambush in some back alley, kill the man, and dump his body in the harbor.

Not that Anders objected to any of that, except that…well. It was Karl doing it. Anders had gotten very used to doing things alone, and doing them safely and cautiously as possible. As he’d always reminded Justice, it was just them—one mind, one body against the entire might of the Chantry.

Now, in Justice’s opinion, it was two minds and two bodies, even more efficient.

He was going to give Anders a heart attack someday.

But he couldn’t complain too much. He owed Justice not just his life, but Karl’s life. Four years ago, Anders had been on the verge of killing Karl right then and there when he found Karl in the Chantry when in a sudden surge of rage and pain Justice had ripped himself free of Anders and merged with Karl instead. It was horrible, terrifying to witness, but the touch of a spirit apparently could overcome the effects of the Rite of Tranquility at least temporarily. With a full merge, Karl still didn’t have his magic, but he had his mind intact, and that was what counted.

There was no ruckus made about the missing mages the next day, which pleased Anders. Karl joining the Mage Underground took a great deal of scrutiny off the clinic: any informers who’d been hinting to Templars that the Darktown Healer was always gone when mages went missing now didn’t have a leg to stand on. The Healer’s lantern was always lit when something happened at the Gallows, and whoever was causing trouble clearly wasn’t a mage.

Small blessings.

In the evening, Karl came back to the clinic with blood on his clothes. “You did the ambush thing, didn’t you,” Anders said, rubbing his face.

“If it counts for anything, it wasn’t in an alley,” Karl offered, pulling off his hood.

Anders shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you,” he said.

Karl pauses in unfastening his gambeson and came to take Anders’ hands in his. “The same thing I always did with you,” he said, offering a gentle smile that made Anders feel like his heart was turning over.

“Which is…?”

“Trust that I know what I’m doing.”

Anders lifted a hand to touch Karl’s cheek. “I do trust you,” he said. “I just don’t trust Kirkwall not to break you. It breaks everyone.”

“Not you,” Karl said. He covered Anders’ hand with his own. “You and Justice gave me the greatest gift I can imagine. If I can make right what was done to me…”

Despite himself, Anders glanced at the faded, shining sunburst scar on Karl’s forehead. “Just this,” he said, gesturing around with his free hand at the clinic, “and bringing down a few Templars won’t change it all. You know we’ll have to do something big.”

Karl shook his head. “I know.” He stepped back and continued removing his armor. “We haven’t exhausted everything yet. The manifesto you began. Audience with the Grand Cleric.”

Anders leaned against the wall, arms folded. “And then?”

Neatly, Karl folded his gambeson and set it on the small bed he shared with Anders. He looked up, out the window, to the fading colors of the sunset where they flickered through into the dim clinic. “You and Justice already had an idea, didn’t you?”

“We did,” Anders said quietly. He watched Karl in silence for a moment, the way his profile looked in the dying light, noble and sad. Imagined that profile against the kind of fire and destruction Anders had always known waited at the end of the path he and Justice walked.

“Well,” Karl said, shaking himself and turning to Anders, “that’s all in the future. For now… you and I will keep working.”

“Yes,” Anders said. “We will.”

He lit the lantern that night, and Karl worked beside him until the small hours of the morning. They didn’t talk about the terrible things that both of them knew would come. Anders only stood closer to Karl than usual, held him tighter in their bed, as if he could prevent it all.

There was no way to prevent it, though. He and Karl and Justice all knew it. No one in the Chantry would hear them until someone forced them to listen. Mages wouldn’t rise up until someone showed them they didn’t have to lie down and die.

Karl knew that better than anyone: he’d resisted the idea of action until the brand touched his skin and he lost everything. He’d taken what Anders saw as a calling and transformed it into a way of life. It scared Anders, sometimes, but he didn’t care. No longer was he powerless. Together, he and Karl were going to build a world where people like them could live free.

No matter what it took. 


End file.
